Visually guided behavior after V1 lesions in young and adult monkeys and its relation to blindsight in humans

After lesions of striate cortex in primates, there is still the capacity to detect and localize visual stimuli. In this chapter we review three aspects of our study of this phenomenon in macaques. First, we found that macaques that received their striate lesions as infants had considerably greater ability to detect and localize stimuli than those that received similar lesions as adults. Second, we suggest that the visual functions that survive striate lesions in macaques made in adulthood resemble those in human 'blindsight'. Third, we report that monkeys with striate lesions made in infancy are able to discriminate direction of visual motion.